January 27, 2014
Dear Everybody who takes time out of their busy schedules to read this:
Wow,
Pday again! This week was ridiculously fast and I feel like I just
wrote you all the other day. If all the weeks go like this, I´ll see you
all before I know it! But yes, we reached the 6 month mark this
week!!!!!!!!!!!! One third done???!!! Wow. It´s super weird to think I
have less than a year left. Also, before I forget again, last week´s
title came from a super cool quote: ¨Eventually we must do more than
tell the stories of the Book of Mormon, we must live them.¨ I LOVE that
because as missioanries we spend so much time studying the scriptures
and then out on the streets I´ve had actual experiences that remind me
so much of those stories. Pretty awesome. So, this week in a nutshell:
Happy Moment of the Week: I got a package from one of my
BESTEST friends Alison!!!!!!!!! I was SO excited! I am so lucky to have a
friend like her :)
Personal Miracle of the Week: So last
week my memory card on my camera became full, so I grabbed the new
memory card before we went on our Pday adventure to the castle. Once
there, I changed the memory card and put the full one in my camera case
for safe-keeping and then we took some pics at the Castle! We were high
up, but the ledge was super thick and I set my bag and camera case
(because i was about to put my camera away) on the ledge for like one
second while I snapped one last pic. However, it was quite a breezy day
and the wind sent my camera case falling down to the grass below. We
were going down again anyway so I didn´t worry about it and one of the
Elders grabbed it for me and then I looked inside...and the memory card
was gone. Time to panic! We´re talking a whole 6 months of my mission on
that card! But I just grabbed a couple missionaries to help me look in
the place where it fell, thinking it would be right there...but there
was long grass and since we didn´t know if it fell while it was still
falling or if it had bounced out, we weren´t sure how easy it would be
to find. We said a prayer and looked for about 20 mins with no luck and
eventually were joined by the rest of the group of missionaries. After a
couple more mins I was about to say forget it because it was proving to
be kind of impossible and I didn´t want to waste everyone´s Pday
looking for a tiny memory card in the grass. I was just about to voice
this when one of the elders shouted that he found it. He FOUND IT! In
the area with the tallest grass! It seriously should have been
impossible, but let me tell you guys, the Lord answers prayers!!! And
now that memory card is safe and sound in my bedroom and it´s not
leaving again!
Most Interesting Lesson of the Week: We had a first lesson
with a woman named Jolaine, an old investigator in the area book that
was finally home when we passed by. She had a million questions! I´ve
never had someone ask so many questions! So even though it was just
supposed to be an introduction lesson, we taught Lesson 1 too. And I´ve
never had anybody been so interested in the fact that we have living
Apostles and a Prophet! Like, she got me excited about it because she
thought it was so cool, and so I realized that wow, it IS cool! We have
Apostles on the Earth today! I love teachign lessons to people that
actually ask questions and listen.
Biggest Regret of the Week: I wish that before my mission I
had looked up more information about the Catholic church. It´s not a big
deal but these people will sometimes talk forever about the millions of
virgins and saints and stuff and I wish I knew more about what they
mean. Besides, even though no one in Spain is really practicing
Catholics, it´s still part of their culture and I honestly don´t know a
lot about the church. So we had this super talkative investigator who
kept talking about and comparing what we said to the Catholic church and
it was hard to follow her rants becuase I didn´t know much about it.
Saddest Moment of the Week: We get a lot of rejection, but
most of the time people don´t outrightly reject the message. They just
say they don´t have time or that they are practicing another religion or
they just aren´t super interested. But one lady right before closing
the door said these exact words (but in Spanish obviously so I guess
it´s not super exact): ¨I don´t want to hear anything about Jesus
Christ.¨ Wow. ¡Qué fuerte! Not many people phrase it quite like that and
it honestly felt like a punch in the stomach to hear it. I felt awful
and wanted to just knock on her door one more time and start yelling
that Jesus has given her EVERYthing and yet she wants nothing to do with
Him. That´s not what we did though. We laughed it off and went to the
next door, but her words kind of haunted me for a few mins. No one had
ever quite rejected us in that way before, using His actual name. It was
a strange feeling.
Second Saddest Moment of the Week: We were waiting for the bus
and this couple started talking to us and asking us things. Her husband
went on this rant about how awful the world is and how we cn believe in
a loving God. The wife was more willing to actually listen to us, but
she actually asked how old we were and then she told us that someday
when we had more life experience and life had hardened us that we would
lose our faith. Someone actually told me that I was going to lose my
faith! I wish we had been able to get their information so I could write
her a letter in like 30 years and tell her all about my strong faith :)
Most Random Lesson of the Week: Bashir! After English class we
went with him to McDonald´s because he wanted to do something nice for
us and so just picture the strangeness of the mission for a second. Two
girls from the US, eating at McDonald´s in Spain with a guy from Libya
who is Muslim and doesn´t speak English or Spanish and he´s showing us
parts of the Koran translated into English so we could read a little
bit. Sometimes the mission is the weirdest...but he is seriously the
sweetest guy ever! We made him cookies to thank him. I feel bad because
he misses his family, so I think the missionaries are some of the only
friends he has here in Spain so I´m so glad we made friends with him!
Near Death Experiences of the Week: This category is debatable
becuaes I don´t think we were close to dying, but you never know! So
Saturday morning I was taking my after-exercise rest on the couch
(because for once I did enough exercise to qualify for a rest haha) and
so I was half asleep when our carbon monoxide alarm went off. and so Hna
Hoffman comes in and we just look at each other and tried to decide
what to do, because in zone conference we had had a lot of warnings
about what to do about that. So we grabbed the phone and went down to
the lobby and called our DL, then the AP, then the Castillos (the office
senior couple). Hna Castillo asked us some questions and then wanted to
hear what the beeping sounded like. So we went back in our apartment
and she thought it just was dysfunctional and needed to be replaced. So
we started studying (at this point late to study because we wasted our
getting ready time on the phone with everyone) and then read the
instructions on the box and realized that the beeping for needing new
batteries was a different beep, and so we were pretty sure that the
beeping was actually the carbon monoxide beep. But by that point it
wasn´t beeping anymore and it was still on, so...I guess we´re good! But
it was a weird experience, and since you can´t smell and know if carbon
monoxide is there, who knows if we had any or not! But we didn´t have
any of the symptoms so I´m sure it´s all fine. Then later that day we
bought a Kebab (look it up, they don´t have them in America because
apparently they´re not FDA approved) becuase we really were craving
Kebabs, but we bought it from a pretty sketchy looking Kebab place so we
were joking about how we were testing our luck today because we had
already survived carbon monoxide alarm.
Spiritual Stuff of the Week: The Zone Leaders gave us all
copies of this AMAZING talk by Tad R Callister about being a consecrated
missionary. I don´t know if you can find it online, but he gave it a
few years ago in the Brazil MTC. I wish I could talk about everything I
learned, but I only have time to focus on one concept: sacrifice. So I
spent a lot of time thinking about sacrifice. Here´s the thing, everyone
knows a mission is a sacrfice. I sacrificed going to my sister´s
wedding. I´m sacrificing times with my family and friends and I´m
putting my education on hold to be here. However, the real sacrifices of
a mission are not things you usually think about in that sense. The
sacrificial alter of a misison requires that we sacrifice other things,
such as fear, pride, weaknesses, basically our will. A weaknesses isn´t
normally something you think of sacrificing, but when you´re in a lesson
and the Spirit wants you to say something but you know you´re Spanish
isn´t good enough to say it, you have to sacrifice that weakness and
just figure it out. Fear is something you normally think of sacrificing
but when a mean Spanish person is wanting you to go away, you have to
forget about the fear and just bear your testimony anyway. So yes, it´s a
sacrifice to leave home and family and school, but it´s a bigger and
more personal and difficult sacrifice to put all those untangible things
on the table and give everything to Jesus. ¨When you came to the
mission field you burned the bridges behind you, you burned the ships in
the harbor. There is no retreat to your former life.¨ Pretty intense!
Honestly, the talk about consecrated missionaries was rather
discouraging, because I realized I have SO many things to get better at
to even be close to being a consecrated missionary, but at the end of
the talk is this quote: ¨I do not think the Lord expects immediate
perfection of us, but I do believe he expects immediate progress.¨ and
¨I do not believe there is one missionary whose weaknesses are greater
than the potential strengths within him.¨ I believe that can apply to
all of you as well.
So that was my week! Tell me about your weeks!
Keep it real and go share the gospel!
Hna Andrew
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